


Condemnation (My Last Dying Words)

by Saral_Hylor



Series: 25 Seconds 'verse [3]
Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers (Comic), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Deleted Scene, First Kiss, Forgiveness, Getting Together, M/M, PTSD, Self-Harm, attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 03:14:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saral_Hylor/pseuds/Saral_Hylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The deleted scene from <i>(Devil Doesn't Want Us and) Heaven's Bouncers Won't Let Us In</i>: </p>
<p>What happens when Jensen walks away from the farm house and Cougar follows him. </p>
<p>Part of the 25 Seconds 'verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Condemnation (My Last Dying Words)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the deleted scene from Heaven's Bouncers. 
> 
> It'll make far more sense if you read at least Heaven's Bouncers, though it also makes reference to Dead Man's Grin.

There were many situations Cougar had found Jensen in, most of them not surprising given how well he knew the hacker. When he tracked down his friend after they returned from the showdown with Max, Cougar never expected to find Jensen five miles out from the farmhouse they’d retreated to, with the Honduran General’s gun in his hand, contemplating putting it in his mouth.

There was that critical moment when he should have said something, should have opened his mouth, but he hadn’t been able to say anything to the hacker since the run in with Max. Since he had to shoot his best friend and then run away while he was blown apart. It didn’t matter that Jensen made it back. It didn’t matter that he was living and breathing. He’d still made Cougar shoot him, watch him die again, and then wait far too long for him to come back. He hadn’t forgiven Jensen for that.

There was that mind numbingly critical moment when all he could do was watch as the hacker raised the pistol and closed his lips around the muzzle. All the things he should have said smashed into the front of his mind, but all that came out of his mouth was a strangled sound. Jensen’s eyes, wide, sad and so desperately lost, met his at that last moment, and then it was too late.

The shot echoed across the clear morning, the hacker’s body crumpled to the ground, a puppet with its strings cut, disappearing into the overgrown field. Cougar dropped his pack and his rifle, sprinting across the paddock.

The mixture of wild crops and grass had been flattened where Jensen fell, stained red. Cougar dropped to his knees beside the body, not noticing the steady mantra of prayers and curses that escaped him as he stared down at the limp hand he clasped between both of his. He couldn’t bring himself to look at any more of Jensen; he couldn’t see him dead, didn’t want to see the bullet wounds, again.

It was the tenth time the hacker had died, the fifth time that Cougar had sat by his dead body, praying, waiting. There was nothing left to do but wait. He didn’t know if there was any coming back after ten, none of them knew, and still Jensen had put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

The anger was still there, how could the hacker be so stupid, so reckless, that he’d shoot himself. There was a chance there was no coming back. Someone like Jensen didn’t take his own life; he joked and loved life and had so much to live for. He had a sister and a niece, a team, a best friend who had stuck by him and been there almost every time he’d come back to life.

Then Cougar saw it; Jensen had had everything, and lost it all. The sister and a niece who he’d never see again in order to keep them safe. The team that had fulfilled its purpose and fallen apart. The best friend who had ignored his very existence since he came back the last time.

The hollowness of loss pushed under his ribs, constricting his lungs, breath jamming in his throat in a solid, painful lump. What if there was no coming back, what if self-inflicted wounds didn’t heal? Jensen, _his_ Jake, would be lost, gone forever. Jensen had needed him, he’d openly admitted it, and he hadn’t been there for him. He’d pushed the hacker so far away. Jake would never know, he never had a chance to tell him just how much he needed him in return. The noise, the distraction, the grin, the pulse beneath his fingertips in the dark of night, that echo of a heartbeat against his spine. The proof that they were alive.

The very proof that lay dead before him.

Leaning down, the sniper pressed his lips to the back of the hand he held, fingers seeking the silent pulse point, settling in to wait for that sign of life. “ _Lo siento,_ Jake. Don’t leave me. Come back to me, _mi vida._ ”

 

 

Almost two hours passed before that first ragged, gasping breath was drawn. Cougar’s legs had cramped from kneeling in the dirt, fingers pressed so tightly to Jensen’s wrist that his fingerprints had indented into the skin. He’d run out of prayers after an hour, the silence welcoming and oppressive at the same time. Without Jensen there, always making noise, there was nothing to drown out the screams, nothing to distract him from the guilt and responsibility he felt over those twenty-five small lives.

Jensen’s eyes blinked open as he sucked in a painful breath; when he coughed it seemed to echo throughout the field. Then nothing. No talking, no smartarse remarks, no attempts at humour. There was no point, Cougar wouldn’t find it amusing. The hat tipped back and brown eyes locked on blue and the hacker knew he didn’t have to say anything.

Cougar could see it, the embedded sadness and desperation. The stress, guilt and depression that had been there since Bolivia but so carefully camouflaged by those obnoxious shirts, almost permanent grin and all the senseless noise. It had always been there, but none of them had noticed, too wrapped up in their own inability to cope. Compared to them, Jensen had seemed so fine. And he had been, mostly, Cougar knew that; Jensen had coped because there were things holding him together, his family and his team, and by his own admission, Cougar in particular. But then they were all taken away and there was nothing left to stop the hacker from falling apart.

There weren’t enough words, not in English or Spanish to convey what the sniper was feeling; the relief that Jake had come back, the regret that he’d never noticed how fragile the hacker was underneath all the bravado, the longing to put him back together, to help them put each other back together again. There was no way to say it, words were insufficient. Instead, Cougar tightened his grip on Jensen’s hand, thumb stroking jerkily across his skin. He took his hat off and set it on the ground beside him, hunching over and pressing his forehead against their joined hands, hair falling down to block out the world.

Jensen’s fingers curled around his, but other than that the hacker didn’t move. There was silence for a long drawn out moment; they shared it, it wasn’t oppressive or uncomfortable. The numbness lingered on, threading through Jensen’s body, it felt impossible to move. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and for it to all be over.

“It’s never going to end.”

The words startled Cougar into looking up, but the younger man wasn’t looking at him, his head tipped to the other side. His blond hair was stained red, blood drying stiff and clumping pale strands together. He dropped his gaze away; he didn’t need the reminders. “I don’t know.”

“I wanted to die. To stay dead. I wasn’t testing a theory, or just seeing what would happen for the hell of it. I wanted this to end.” Jensen swallowed, his fingers twitching in the other man’s grasp, but he didn’t try to pull away. “It wasn’t supposed to end this way. We were supposed to get our lives back. That was the point of this, of going after Max. Wasn’t it? And it didn’t happen like that. We got the bad guy, we stopped the psycho terrorist from blowing up the world. And we’re still no better off than before. I can’t go home, Cougs. I can’t take Jess and Beth somewhere else and start over. They’re all the family I have, and Max took them away from me too. Took me away from them. I’ve got nothing. We’re not even the Losers anymore.

“What happens if this is permanent? What if we never die? Never grow old, never change. For all I know, we could be stuck in time, and we’ll stay like this forever. There’s no way to know for sure. Just have to wait and see what happens. I don’t want to have to watch Jess and Beth get old while I’m stuck like this. I don’t want to be alone forever. That shit is just messed up and unfair.”

Still gripping Jensen’s hand, Cougar reached out with his free hand, touching his fingers to the hacker’s jaw and turning his face back towards him. Blue eyes blinked at him from behind his glasses, but didn’t look away again. There was so much that he wanted to say, that he had to say, to let Jake know he didn’t have to be alone. That he’d follow him to the end of forever if that was what was in store for them. That he needed him just as much, if not more. That he’d do anything to stop Jensen from dying again. But he wasn’t big on words; instead, the touch of his hand, the steady eye contact and two words would have to suffice.

“Not alone.”

Those two words said far more than should have been possible. It was typical Cougar fashion, and Jensen was pretty good at understanding the other man, even without words. It seemed natural to press his face back against the hand on his cheek, to tighten his grip on the hand holding his. “Why’d you push me away, Cougs? I came back, like you told me to, and you wouldn’t even talk to me.”

“I was scared of losing you. Scared that you wouldn’t come back.” Cougar turned his gaze away; he didn’t want to see the blood stained grass anymore, or those blue eyes so desperately seeking answers. “I didn’t want to forgive you for dying again. For making me shoot you.”

The hacker pulled away, rolling over and pushing himself unsteadily to his feet. Everything was stiff and cold, the side of his face in particular since it was no longer pressed against Cougar’s hand. He picked up the pistol, ejected the clip and emptied the chamber before tucking it down the back of his jeans, the clip going into his pocket. It had been a stupid thing to do, he realised that now, but, fuck, if his life didn’t suck he didn’t know what did. “It wasn’t a bundle of laughs for me either, but we had to get Max, and I had to stay to give you more time. It’s not my fault, and it’s not yours either, before you go getting any ideas.”

Jamming the hat back on his head, Cougar stretched to his feet as well, staring intently at Jensen’s back. It was hard to convey what he wanted to say when the younger man refused to look at him. “Jake…”

“Carlos…” Jensen mimicked his resigned tone, but turned around, hands scrubbing through his hair, trying to remove the dried blood and whatever else that was stuck there; he didn’t really want to think about it. “What do we do now? Pooch and Roque are already gone. I can’t go home. You don’t have a home. I don’t want to stick around with Clay and Aisha; I’ve had enough of listening to them fucking. What are you going to do? Where are you going to go?”

Cougar just stared at the younger man for a long moment. He still looked so lost, every certainty he had in life was gone; it was not easy to see Jensen like that. Shrugging slightly, he reaffirmed the promise he’d made earlier. “I go where you go. Not alone.”

 

 

They started back towards the farmhouse, though it had grown late in the day and night soon started the creep in. It wasn’t the dark that stopped them though, but Jensen’s reluctance to face Clay.

Less than half a mile out from the farmhouse was an old feed shed, half fallen down, but there was two adjacent walls still standing, giving them a corner to shelter in. Being prepared was so deeply ingrained in Cougar that it didn’t surprise Jensen that the sniper’s pack contained two MREs, water and a sleeping bag.

They picked over their food in silence; force of habit had Jensen handing over the small bag of M&Ms without even having to see the way Cougar eyed them off. The hacker was unnaturally quiet, his mind still crammed too full of everything that happened. He had Cougar; despite everything else that had gone wrong and slipped away, the sniper had said they’d stick together.

He was jerked out of his thoughts by the touch of Cougar’s hand to the back of his head. Flinching forward, Jensen glanced over at the other man, seeing that he was holding up the canteen of water, eyebrows raised in question. Grinning sheepishly, he nodded. “Yeah, guess so, though I’d much prefer a hot shower.”

Cougar shrugged apologetically, moving out from the shelter a bit and waited while the hacker stripped off from the waist up, dropping his glasses on top of his jacket before shuffling out to where the sniper waited, arms hugged around himself against the cold. Cougar tried to work quickly, his fingers going numb as he tipped water over the back of the younger man’s head, scrubbing the blood from his hair. As soon as the water ran clear, he bundled Jensen back into his jacket, and unrolled the sleeping bag, indicating for the hacker to get in.

Teeth chattering, he kicked his boots off, wedged the pistol between himself and the wall, and slid into the sleeping bag, wriggling right over to one side before looking towards where Cougar was repacking his pack. “You too, Cougs.”

The sniper looked over at him, seeing the way that Jensen held open the sleeping bag for him. He raised an eyebrow, smirking slightly, Jensen shrugged awkwardly in response. There was no point getting cold, he knew that. Mirroring the shrug, Cougar finished packing, unlacing his boots and leaving them within easy reach, he slid awkwardly into the sleeping bag, placing his rifle down beside him.

There wasn’t a whole lot of room, it wasn’t built for two, but it was better than the cold. Cougar rolled his jacket up as a pillow, setting his hat down just above his head. Wedged in with his back pressed against the younger man’s chest, he closed his eyes and imagined he could feel the echo of Jensen’s heartbeat against his spine. It was different from every time before; Cougar didn’t think it was just the cramped space that made Jensen hold him closer, or the shared pillow that made him press his nose into the back of his neck.

Cougar wasn’t sure what started it; if it was brush of lips against his skin, or his ever so slight shifting that had him twisting around to face the other man. Jensen stared at him, blue eyes slightly unfocused without his glasses, blinking slowly. He looked so young without them, young and vulnerable. It was easy to forget that Jensen had killed people, been killed himself, when he looked like that.

He pushed his hand inside the hacker’s jacket, resting it over his heart, feeling the pounding beat against his palm. Cougar had to remind himself that it was Jensen, not some one night stand, but Jake, his best friend, his teammate. Alive, breathing against his face, it was _his_ Jake.

The blond haired man continued to stare at him, arm still looped around his back, too silent, but so alive. Jensen bit his lip, blinking again, eyes staying closed for a few seconds. His body quaked as a nervous chuckle escaped his mouth. “Not much room, hey?”

The heartbeat fluttered beneath his palm; Cougar wanted to keep his hand on it forever, so he’d always have proof that the hacker was alive. The air around them felt too thick, not just because of their close proximity or from breathing from the same space. There was something there, and he wanted it. “Jake?”

The arm around him tightened, hand pressed against the middle of his back, Jensen’s other hand forcing its way out from between them, fingers pushing Cougar’s hair out of his face, lingering against his temple.

“Fuck, Cougs.” Jensen mumbled, mouth barely moving as his head tipped forward slightly.

It was all the invitation that the other man needed.

Cougar tilted his head up, pushing closer; his lips brushed carefully against Jensen’s, waiting for resistance, half expecting rejection. There wasn’t any. Fingers curled around his hair, pulling him closer, something akin to a whimper worked its way out of the hacker. The kiss turned desperate, harsh, life affirming; hands clutching and scrabbling at clothes, seeking skin.

Drawing back, panting, Jensen couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. “Fucking hell, Cougs, you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that. Don’t leave me. Ever. I wasn’t lying when I said I need you. You’re all I’ve got left. Don’t leave me.”

Cougar shook his head, shifting again, propping himself up with one arm, leaning over the younger man. Running his other hand through still damp hair, he tipped his head down, captured the hacker’s lips again, slower, softer; he had his proof. “Not alone, _prometo_.”

**Author's Note:**

> There is going to be more stories in this verse! Working on a follow up at the moment. 
> 
> Thanks for everyone who has read this whole series, or pieces of it. Just thanks for all the support!


End file.
